“Will your Grace permit me to show you an account of some of them?
| “From the Marchioness of Normanby, | £20 | 0 | 0 |
| The Lady Northampton (I think), | 20 | 0 | 0 |
| Duke of Buckingham and Duchess, 2 years since, | 26 | 17 | 6 |
| The Queen, | 43 | 0 | 0 |
| The Bishop of Sarum (Bishop Burnett), | 40 | 0 | 0 |
| The Archbishop of York, at least | 10 | 0 | 0 |
| Besides lent to (almost) a desperate debtor, | 25 | 0 | 0 |
| £184 | 17 | 6 |
“A frightful sum, if one saw it all together; but it is beyond thanks, and I must never hope to perform that, as I ought, till another world; where, if I get first into the harbour, I hope none shall go before me in welcoming your lordship into everlasting habitations; where you will be no more tired with my follies, nor concerned at my misfortunes. However, I may pray for your Grace while I have breath, and that for something nobler than this world can give; it is for the increase of God’s favour, of the light of His countenance, and of the foretaste of those joys, the firm belief whereof can only support us in this weary wilderness. And, if it be not too bold a request, I beg your Grace would not forget me, though it be but in your prayer for all sorts and conditions of men; among whom, as none has been more obliged to your Grace, so, I am sure, none ought to have a deeper sense of it than your Grace’s most dutiful and most humble servant,
“S. Wesley.”
To a man with a large family, and who, if not at present, had recently been £300 in debt, the burning of his house was a dire disaster; but, alas! Samuel Wesley’s calamities did not end with this. During the winter of 1704, which was very shortly after the rebuilding of his house, another fire broke out, and burnt the whole of his flax; and, five years after that, a third fire utterly destroyed his recently re-erected rectory. But these are facts which, in chronological order, will have to be noticed anon.
In the year 1703, a small pamphlet was published, entitled, “A Letter from a Country Divine to his Friend in London, concerning the Education of Dissenters in their Private Academies in several parts of this Nation: Humbly offered to the consideration of the Grand Committee of Parliament for Religion, now sitting. London, 1703,” 4to., pp. 15.[[161]] Samuel Wesley was the writer of this letter; but it was printed without either his consent or knowledge; and, as it led to a serious, prolonged, and ill-natured controversy, it behoves us to examine its history.
Up to the time that Mr Wesley went to Oxford University, he was a Nonconformist, the child, and the grandchild of expelled Nonconformist ministers, and a student trained in Nonconformist academics, and having none but Nonconformist acquaintances. His life at Oxford was retired, and, therefore, not likely to make him many friends of another description. On his return to London, in 1688, he not only kept up a friendship with some of his old Dissenting associates, but also began to become acquainted with several gentlemen of the Church of England. One of these, knowing that Wesley had been educated in a Dissenting academy, zealously, if not wisely, urged him to write an account of the inner life of such establishments. For some time Wesley resisted this request; but at length a circumstance happened which led him to comply. He tells us that he went, with some of his Dissenting acquaintances, to a Dissenting festival, held in a house in Leadenhall Street. The discourse of these festive Dissenters was so fulsome, profane, and lewd, that he was not able to endure it. In a little while they sat down to supper, and now they all began to rail against monarchy, and to blaspheme the memory of King Charles the martyr. These proceedings convinced Wesley that his old friends, who some years before had prompted him to “dabble in rhyming lampoons both on Church and State,” were as disaffected and disloyal as ever. He felt disgusted, and leaving the room, he went home, and, before he slept, wrote the letter, which was published some twelve or thirteen years afterwards.
But here we must pause. The festival, at which Wesley was present, was the anniversary of the notorious Calves-head Club, and a brief account of that infamous fraternity seems needful.
In the British Museum, there is a small quarto pamphlet of twenty-two pages, entitled “The Secret History of the Calves-head Club; or, The Republican Unmasked: Wherein is fully shown the religion of the Calves-head heroes, in their anniversary thanksgiving songs, on the 30th January, by them called anthems, for the years 1693 to 1697; now published to demonstrate the restless, implacable spirit of a certain party still among us, who are never to be satisfied, till the present establishment in Church and State is subverted. London: Printed and sold by the booksellers of London and Westminster, 1703.” From that pamphlet the following particulars are taken:—
The preface states, that, “the poems, or ribaldry, and trash following were composed and set to music for the use of the Calves-head Club, which was erected by an impudent set of people, who have their feasts of calves’ heads, in several parts of the town, on the 30th of January, in derision of that day, and in defiance of monarchy; at divers of which meetings the following compositions were sung, and which, in affront of the Church, were called anthems.”